James Weir McLachlan (16 August 1862 – 18 September 1938) was an Australian politician.
He was born in
Harcourt to saddler William Ramsay McLachlan and Mary Weir. He attended state schools and was a pupil teacher before inheriting the family's
Sale saddlery. He worked as a journalist for the ''Gippsland Times''. In 1908 he was elected to the
Victorian Legislative Assembly
The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne.
The presiding ...
as the
Labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
member for
Gippsland North. He married Celia Sarah Hearn on 23 December 1912; they had two children. He resigned from the Labor Party over conscription in 1916 and was a member of the
National Labor Party
The National Labor Party was formed by Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes in 1916, following the 1916 Labor split on the issue of World War I conscription in Australia. Hughes had taken over as leader of the Australian Labor Party and Pri ...
, but he did not join the
Nationalist Party and remained in the Assembly as an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
. Known for his eccentricity, he supported governments of all three parties at various times. McLachlan held his seat until his death in 1938.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:McLachlan, James
1862 births
1938 deaths
Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria
Independent members of the Parliament of Victoria
Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly